The risk of injury is high in handball due to the physical stress and body contacts as the defenders try to stop the attackers from approaching the goal. Most common injuries occur at the fingers and the wrist joint and also at the knee and ankle joint. One of the most important offensive attacking move is the jumping shot from the backcourt to the goal. The aim of this study is to measure the extreme physical stress in knee and ankle joint during the whole standardized attack pattern, especially during push off and landing.

Five voluntary teenagers, who are playing in the handball team of gymnasium in Frauengasse, are participating in this project and each of them will perform five jump shots. We use fixed force plates to collect kinetic data, and a position set of reflecting markers on the players’ skin for kinematic measurements using ten cameras at a sample frequency of 120 Hz. A simultaneously triggered force plate and EMG telemetric system with surface EMG electrodes will be combined with the kinematic motion analysis. For further analysis we will put the collected data into biomechanical modeling software (SIMM, MusculoGraphics Inc.) which provides a full body model showing virtual realistic motion.

This project will give an insight for the students into the competitive sport training methods and also a chance for them to work closely with our research group as well.

This project has been completed.